Nowadays, it is quite common to purchase goods and/or services over the Internet, through ‘e-commerce’ websites and web-enabled virtual stores. Correspondingly, there has been a need to develop electronic payment systems that facilitate the electronic transfer of value, while maintaining a high level of security.
One example of a transaction system and method which facilitates secure electronic transactions is described and defined in PCT application PCT/SG2010/000222 (publication number WO 2010/147559), which is incorporated herein by reference.
WO2010/147559 describes a system and method which allows a user or provider of a ‘smart card’ to change the state of a transaction channel. That is, the system and method allows a user or provider to ‘lock’ and/or ‘unlock’ certain transaction modes, such as web purchasing, point of sale purchasing, etc with respect to other transaction modes.
Such a system allows a user or provider to ‘choose’ what types of channels may be used to effect transactions. So, for example, a user may decide that, for security reasons, they will ‘lock’ their card to prevent the card from being used for web-based purchases, but will leave the card unlocked for traditional point of sale (POS) purchases. If the user's card is stolen, an unauthorized user would not be able to use the card to effect any web-based purchases, thereby providing an extra level of security.
In the abovementioned system, which is described herein below in more detail merely to provide some context for the inventive concept described in the specification as a whole, the card has a default setting, that ‘locks’ the card to prevent web-based purchases.
Thus, the card lock-unlock feature was developed with a view to provide a user with a mechanism to explicitly ‘unlock’ the card for web-based purchases. To save the user the effort of having to re-lock the channel after use, the channel may be automatically locked after a web purchase is made, or after a predefined period of time has passed (e.g. 30 minutes).
One commercially available embodiment provides a timer that is set immediately after the ‘Unlock Card’ transaction is processed. An incoming purchase transaction immediately re-locks the card and stops the timer. If the timer is not stopped and expires with no web purchase transaction seen, the system locks the card. This feature assists in mitigating web purchase fraud.
However, while the invention described and defined in WO2010/147559 provides a number of advantages over the prior art, there is a need to provide a more efficient method of locking/unlocking smart cards. In addition, there is also a need to avail card issuers with the locking/unlocking feature from a card network perspective.
The preceding discussion of the background art is intended to facilitate an understanding of the present invention only. The discussion is not an acknowledgement or admission that any of the material referred to is or was part of the common general knowledge as at the priority date of the application.